Samantha Harper Macy co-author of “Two Sisters Cafe”

The Two Sisters’ Café is a fantasy novel that could just as easily have been called The Crossroads. Situated in Northern Kentucky in the small town of Willow Creek, the Café is a place of possibilities, a crossroads where many histories have been rewritten and where other worlds and universes are but a thought or two away

The owners of this Café are two sisters of indeterminate age: Vannie and Alma. Normal, everyday people see nothing special about this place or the sisters, yet the Café has become the living, breathing centre of Willow Creek. You see, the sisters are magicians, very powerful magicians. They can see the past, the possible and the probable futures of the inhabitants of Willow Creek. Living by their own principles of not interfering in people’s lives and of doing no harm, the sisters try as best they can to invisibly guide and nurture their patrons. The sisters do step in on occasion, when they can save someone from certain horror. And I think the people of Willow Creek know this on some deep and never visited level of their minds. For they all seem to feel safe at The Two Sisters’ Café.

How does the sisters’ magic work? Well, other than having access to the world of Faeries, being able shape shift into fierce warriors and having the distinction of being immortal, the two sisters might very well be life coaches like Tony Robbins or Les Brown. But let them tell you in their own words… “A magician puts her magical thread through the eye of her needle, her wand. Then she reaches into her interior and captures a bit of belief in herself and what is possible. The magician then plucks together attitudes to support her beliefs. She builds on those beliefs and attitudes, with thoughts and feelings about what she is creating, the more precise and intense, the better. Detail and passion are important. Most importantly, she empowers her wand with her choice to let the magic happen and allow her dream to come true. Then and only then can the wand wield all its magic.”

The magic sounds like it would be hard to do by accident, so when Vannie and Alma break one of their own rules to save the life of young Sugar Curtis, they know it was by choice, just as they know they have now become responsible for the rest of his family—the dirt poor, beaten down family of moonshiner Cleatis Curtis. The sisters can see a lot of what they’re in for, but still refuse to let the talented singer (Sugar Curtis) die in prison. But little do the sisters know that in helping him to rework his past and step into an alternate future, they will find, in the form of one of Sugar’s sisters, the apprentice they have been waiting for centuries to find. Now, having changed the pathway of two children within the same family, the sisters understand completely that they will have to deal with Cleatis, a man full of rage who takes it out on all members of his family, a man who because of a secret he has carried all his adult life, will not and cannot work for anyone else, a man who has learned to use to his advantage the little bit of magic that runs through his veins and, finally, a man unafraid to fight with any means at his disposal.

And so goes the story of a young girl full of potential, who is taught about life by two magical godmothers. Sometimes these lessons are direct. But most times, the girl, Sarah, learns by watching how Alma and Vannie care for the people of Willow Creek: physically, mentally and magically.

This story, The Two Sisters’ Café, written by Elena Yates Eulo and Samantha Harper Macy is so fundamentally beautiful and touches the soul with such purposeful care, that the reader may come away as we did, refreshed and believing in the magic that dwells within us all.